lynching: how a gruesome mass murder rocked a small georgia town." he talks about the mass lynching of african-americans in georgia. the fbi investigated and the case went to a grant jury, but nobody was convicted. the national archives posted this hour-long event. >> in "the last lynching" anthony pitch makes use of documents from the national archives, to reconstruct the events that led to the 1946 murders of four african-americans, and the push for anti-lynching laws. steve's praised the book for containing amazing research on the barbarity of the jim crow south and vigilante justice. and a cnn analyst said, it told the haunting story that sadly becomes more relevant all the time. anthony pitch is the author of many nonfiction books. including, kill pop the dead, and the burning of washington.

he is a former associate of press staffer in london and a broadcast editor in philadelphia. a senior writer who has reported from israel and africa. following his letter, he will be signing books in front of the archives store. please welcome anthony pitch back to the national archives. [applause] anthony: hello, everybody. i am glad that you managed to take time off to come here. i have concentrated on american history in my last five books and they all have to do with catastrophe. that is what i am attracted to. i think in the closing years of my life that my books, the book "kill papa dead," is the best i have written. sometimes i read it and i wondered if i wrote it. this book, i had wanted to write about a lynching since 1998. and i could not find a lynching that had documentary evidence to back it up. i found one in maryland that interested me, but the records had been destroyed, so there was nothing to write about, nothing to research. eventually, i found this lynching and it struck me as different in many respects.

first come at it was a mass -- first, it was a mass lynching. and one of the victims was a world war ii veteran and that shocked me. i wondered, how on earth they could do this to a veteran of world war ii so soon after the war. so i thought about it six years ago and there was so much material to go through, 10,000 documents, mostly from the national archives and the fbi. and i have not wanted to solve it, but portray it because in order to appreciate american history, you have to say it -- see it all. you need to see the glory of washington and lincoln, and you need to see the scars of the lynching and the evil side of

life. lynching would expose corrupter he is -- corrupteries, it would show rogue actions, and there was so much i wanted to tell on this. and that is why i decided to do it. i went down to georgia to see the annual reenactment, of which was promoted by an organization called the georgia association of black elected officials.

i do not approve of it or sanction it, i think it is disgusting, but they have first amendment rights and people on the memorial committee recognized that right. and so do i. so i saw some terrible things. i was taken around by two guys, one of them happen to be a veteran civil rights activist who had survived a firebombing and in the horrors -- and knew the horrors in his quest to report and see these evil five -- sides. it took me to the homes of some of the grandchildren of the suspects. and he said, we will not stop here. we will go slowly, but we will not stop because it is too dangerous. and my other guide was the son of the secretary of state. he had been interviewed 30 years earlier. he is the king of his father, looks just like him. and rich took me to many of the sites. we went to a church on a sunday where many of the suspects had worshiped. and i wanted to see what it was like. when we came out, the hood of his car was open and he said, look, if anything happens to me it was nice knowing you. nothing happened. but i went around the cemetery and saw all the grays -- graves of the suspects. they were tidy and it needs. -- and neat. it was a revelation. so, to write about lynching i had to be faithful to what i found and what i reported. it was a horrible side of the history, but i had to do it. our constitution, the declaration of independence, says that everybody has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. and the bill of rights says that everybody is entitled to due process of law.

these people were killed like wildlife. they had no witnesses, they had no court, no trial, and they were really treated with discussed -- disgust. they were put down honestly, like wildlife. i use the "n" word throughout the book. it is a degrading, ugly word that has no place in our modern lexicon, but i use it because nothing so portrays the past as the language in common use at the time. in other words, it is not words heard from our years -- ears in this present time. it is what it was like at that time. to have lost -- glossed over it would have denied these people the right and indignities they had to endure. that is why i use it. i make no apology for using it. i had to show what it was like in 1946 in rural the -- georgia. and i use the word lynch throughout. according to the dictionary definition, it is a murder by mob action without a lawful trial. steves is head of the law center and he asked me not to use the word lynch, but i told the publisher that this was not acceptable. but i have no say. the publisher has the right to set the title of the book. i would not have used it, but the court officials, the white house, the justice department, the journalists, all kinds of people use the word, and therefore i used the word. so that was an introduction. i said about this, and as i said, it took a long time because there were about 10,000 documents to go through. on the 25th of july, 1946, and agitated farmer telephoned a sheriff in georgia to report that 4 blacks had been dragged

from his car and murdered. he was shocked. when he reached the sheriff, he continued his meal my then -- meal, then joined in the ride out to the crime scene. when they got to the bridge, they walked down to the undergrowth on the river. that is when they saw the four bodies -- two men and two women, shot multiple times, leaving ghastly wounds that cracked their schools -- skulls. nobody had tried to run and they were shot as they lay down. the law man was so overwhelmed that they went back to monroe,

georgia to summon a coroner, leaving the crimes thing unprotected. -- scene unprotected. they came back with the farmer and others. and he said that there were about 24 men who had ambushed them at the bridge, dragged out the victims and shot them. and when he told the mother of george and dorothy, that their children had been shot dead, she slumped down in a faint. about 35 men, women and children came forward to look at the carnage. and nobody told them to back off. the farmer identified the victims, starting with roger, whom he had failed -- bailed out

of jail just over a quarter of an hour earlier. he said that roger had agreed to work on his farm and he was taking them all back to his home. he identified roger's wife, dorothy, her brother george dorsey, and his wife mae. all were in their 20's. i should have said earlier that i had a stroke recently and it affected my balance, that is why i walk with a cane. they also affected my hearing, i am heart of hearing, -- har of hearingd, so when you ask questions later, i probably will not hear. but there will be somebody in front to tell me what you asked. but i hate having notes, but i have no choice in the matter.

and so, the jurors cut the roads -- ropes that were tying the males together and put it in segments today, as keepsakes. and the bailiff took, a souvenir, a part of an abdomen. and writers -- rogers, the rope around his neck was so tight, that the impression was left on his skin and most of his face had been shut off -- shot off. onlookers rush forward to take souvenirs, even as those for

victims were taken to the funeral home. in the days to come, many more people would stop by, looking for mementos, even crying -- prying lose tree trunks. a few days earlier, roger's grandmother had taken the black undertaker aside and said, if anything happened to her grand son, she wanted him to look after the body. now that same grandson was in front of him, awaiting the respective promise of the elderly lady. at that time the radio airwaves cracked with reports of what had happened. and it was, they said that these unknown people had ambushed their car at a bridge at sunset

in the georgia boonies. it was rapid, the kind of copy that radio thrived on. i know, because decades ago i was with the associate press in philadelphia and that is what they like. but the rest -- rushed to broadcast this account of their scoop, without checking. and if they had checked they would have found out that the harrison, the farmer, was not a kind farmer as they described him. he was in fact, he had a long record of criminal activity, including time served in the penitentiary. he was known as a ruthless employer who had a long history of repetitive brutality and frenzied violence toward black men and women. he owned a farm which he operated just like those lords who had served -- serfs.

the crime took place in a small county seat of monroe. it was such a small town that a visitor could drive a car down the buildup -- built up area of the main street and it took slightly longer than it took to fill a vacant of gas -- tank of gas. there was languidly to this center and the surrounding community. the courthouse overlooked the town with aging authority, as if mindful of its role as the keeper of a settled way of life. and from the grounds rose a statue of a confederate soldier

in memory of those who had fought in defense of the south in the civil war, a conflict that was still known to locals as the war of northern aggression. evidence later compiled by investigators showed that the suspects must have come from a neighborhood seven miles away. and hester town was so named because many of the people there were descendents of those named hester. many of them were illiterate and hester town, the people that lived there, they were not only illiterate, but they had farms that had actual vegetables, small acreages of cotton, and a dairy herd. a marriage between those that were closely related to one another was not uncommon. hester town had evolved into a neighborhood that was -- in turf and had a rigidly uniform

outlook. that is where roger malcom had stabbed a white man. but it had a darker side to it. an observer said that they treated their staff and farmhands like horses and mules. they were churchgoers and found no contradiction in worshiping at a church that preached goodwill to all races, while they believed in white dominance. the stabbing took place three days before they went to vote in primary elections statewide for governor. and the state was boiling over with racist ideas. it was only recently that the supreme court had lifted the ban on black voters. as a result, the former governor, who was now running for a fourth nonconsecutive term, stiffened resistance and he was the kind of person that inside it oysters crowds -- incited oysters crowds -- boisterous crowds. he made himself the white people's candidate and he used the "n" word often and said that if he was reelected, he would

impose the ban on black voters. that kind of person. and his followers disenfranchised tens of thousands of blacks on the grounds of literacy or competency to vote. they -- these people, excuse me. one of those moments when i have a blank. roger had been in jail for a week, languishing there. and he told the man that had raised him from childhood that he did not want to get out, because he was afraid of what they would do to him. the vigilantes would break in, he feared, and take his life. but roger had stabbed a white man. and in georgia in 1946, he may as well have committed suicide. one observer said, "if a black man got involved in an altercation or encounter with a

white man, it was the same as a death sentence against him." but everybody was duped into thinking everything was fine and ok. harrison told his passengers to go and shop in monroe and meet him at the courthouse at 5:00 in a few hours.

they were happy and content that roger would be billed out of -- bailed out of jail. he himself was trying to get his car repaired, meeting with friends, doing grocery shopping and having smalltalk with friends at the ice plant. his movements seemed to be routine and harmless, but as he took them back he said he thought that they were drinking, although the autopsies would prove otherwise. he said that they were talking louder and quicker than they used to, but they all seemed happy and content.

a quarter of an hour later they arrived at the bridge, a single lane going over the bridge, and that is when harrison said that anonymous people ambushed them and they asked everybody to put their hands up and then they drag out the black males, wrote -- roped them together and to the undergrowth of the river. and harrison said, he thought that he heard roger say, my time has come. one of the women in, according to harrison, recognize the ambushed and yelled out his name. and then men grabbed the two women, and took them down to the river and they were all butchered by gunfire. harrison said that he did not recognize any of the ambushers,

nor could he remember the name of the ambusher yelled out by the woman. so he fled back to a store to telephone the deputy sheriff about the massacre. as you can imagine, this slaughter created national headlines, then international headlines. even more so when they discovered one of the victims was a decorated veteran of world war ii, george dorsey. veterans cried out for justice for the loss of one of their own. people asked, how was it possible that the barbarity of the enemy and world war ii could have found a place in the land of the victors.

thousands of protests -- thousands of letters of the -- letters of protest came to the fbi and one black veteran said that he and people of his race wondered if the sacrifices they made had been worth it. a letter arrived at the white house from a black preteen from the west coast and she said, her people had thought and died -- fought and died for america, as well as any other tribe. and those in the senate, the southerners, grouped together in the league of defense. they accused outsiders of trying to make political capital out of this crime because blacks were involved and it happened in the south. they said that brutality in

their states were never given as much publicity. president harry truman expressed horror. and the attorney general ordered an immediate and full investigation by the fbi. there was a white house vigil of people who protested this brutality and they stood in front of the white house. in san francisco, people of both

races marched silently down the main street, market street, holding placards -- one of them reading, can now 42 -- canal 42, open now want -- monroe georgia, 46. the nation interrupted in theory, demanding the immediate arrest of the members of the lynch mob. the fbi has been held in high esteem at that time because they had finally brought in the gangster al capone, and the robert john dillinger -- robber john dillinger, and other crooks and mobsters, but in this case they entered shame and discuss -- discussed, because of the incompetence of the lead

investigator. j edgar hoover, the director of the ei -- fbi, had sent the man to another state at reduced salary for not obeying orders. of course the man immediately resigned. in the meantime, 39 hours had expired before a pair of fbi agents arrived at the scene of the crime. in the meantime, hundreds of evil -- people had come to take away the evidence. 20 agents arrived at monroe to investigate. that was equivalent to a

midsized field office, a clear indication of the priority in which the justice department often gave a quick resolution to the case. but the fbi had to go in pairs for their own protection. they were looked on as outsiders that should mind their own business. and the whites saw them as a threat to a fixed way of life, unchanged since the civil war. and the kkk had been active a decade earlier in monroe. now, they were busy recruiting more members.

so, they closed ranks. they did not say very much, little or nothing. a white justice of the peace actually told the fbi that he hoped it would not be solved, because he said, "this is a deterrent for uppity blacks." they even slandered the fbi, accusing them of barging into homes of women and threatening them while they searched for evidence.

they refused, many of them refused to sign their statements for the fbi or deliver up their guns. the fbi had no jurisdiction to demand otherwise. a few farmers disguised their belief and white dominance and tempered their feelings with ambivalence. the household staff were no different, they were terrified and intimidated, threatens and scared -- threatened and scared. and said, even those that were brave enough to talk to the fbi, said there was no way they could talk in an open court and get the money -- and give testimony. but, one of the investigators wrote to washington, the fbi headquarters, and said that the stories were holding up. harrison and the sheriff's stories were holding up. to us it may seem ridiculous,

but that is what they reported. the georgia bureau of investigation normally would investigate a crime like murder, but they do not have the staff or the resources or the manpower to do this, so they differed to the fbi. which was much superior to them and all of those fields. and as time went on the fbi was accused of bungling the case. one newspaper even accused the fbi of capturing elusive criminals, but they cannot even track down some backcountry georgia murderers.

j edgar hoover said in a letter to his inner circle, that, "we are doing most of the work, but when the time comes for this to be broken, some georgia politician is doing most of the talking." in other words, if the case is lost, the fbi will be hurt -- it was a case of damned if you do and if you don't. he let the case go on for four months after the massacre. the reason was, he thought that in that time one of the people might, one of the mob, might break ranks and name a state official, which would give the fbi the conspiracy and jurisdiction they needed.

and he also thought that the power of the oath had a very strong appeal to the people, to the suspects. in other words, they might say things that they would otherwise not disclose and the prosecutor might even track -- trap them into saying things they do not want to say. j edgar hoover said to harrison, that they were hoping, that he would be forced to say something than what was already said -- what happened during the time before the ambush. they were hopeful that the grand jury would have an effect on the principal suspects. -- principle suspects. harrison admitted stopping by at

the plant to talk to friends, but he denied talking to james werner or knowing him. james was a white supremacist, a former marksman who thought nothing of firing a shotgun or other weapons in the direction of blacks, or shouting at them not to vote.

in other words, keeping them from the polls. harrison denied, absolutely denied, that he talked to this man. the attorney general wrote a letter to edgar hoover, and he wrote, "don't you think that our presence in monroe should continue until we find out if somebody can implicate the state officials?" hoover agreed. then the attorney general said, let's have a grand jury. hoover told his subordinates that they would be having a grand jury and that jury met for 16 days in december of 1940. -- 1946. and they were made up of 21 whites and only two blacks. it was four months after the massacre, so there was enough time to get evidence, but they delivered a verdict that was unanimous.

it did not identify and a buddy, nobody out all -- identify anybody, nobody at all. this was a great shock to everybody. they only indicted one man for perjury, and that charge was later withdrawn. in other words, everybody went free. the repercussions were horrific. a 19-year-old black man called lamarr howard insisted on testifying at the grand jury, even though he was putting his life on the line. documents i managed to get, declassified, show that he told the grand jury that he saw harrison deep in conversation with james verner, less than an

hour before the massacre. and then he said he saw james carrying two pistols to the ice plant shortly before, or shortly after the massacre. that was really putting his life on the line. james and his younger brother tom, two weeks later, arrived at the ice plant and they took lamarr howard aside and said, they wanted to know what you told the grand jury. they took him to the back of the plant, to a cowshed, and there they beat him, rammed his head against the wall, and hammered him with a loaded revolver. his clothes were a blast red -- blotched red from the beating and the sockets of his eyes were

pummeled purple, but he did not say anything about a gun because he was afraid it he did -- if he did, they would kill him. on a tip from some unknown person -- was arrested and charged. in the meantime, we james -- when howard got home, his brother said, mama, what is wrong with his face?

she jumped out of bed and asked, what is wrong? and he said, i got beat up. and she asked, who did it? and he said, james. and she asked, why? and his icon because of what you said at the grand jury. so they were arrested. in the meantime, the white farmer had told the black undertaker who had looked at the corpses, that every black person that had testified at the grand jury should exile themselves from georgia, otherwise they would all be found shot. when the case appeared in court, tom verner was found not guilty. james told the court that he had

beaten up howard, because he had run him off the road with his car and the jury believed him. he was acquitted. the attorney general, the state solicitor general, said that this was a bad jury because many of the people on it where members of the hester town area. there was nothing to do about that. the atlantic daily world, a preeminent among black newspapers crusading for civil rights, said that the jury returned the verdict only because of the race of lamarr howard. that year, later that year, tom died in a car crash and james was murdered five years later. when this appeared, i filed a court action demanding the transcripts of the grand jury, because the people who testified and what they said would be crucial to my book. i could not do it myself, but i was very lucky. a lawyer from rockaway, new

jersey, he came forward and offered to represent me free of charge. he had assistance and they all worked without demanding payment at all. he was a very good man. they found a great brief it it seemed -- and it seemed like we had a good chance of succeeding, because the lead investigator wrote immediately after the grand jury dissolved, he wrote to washington saying that he understood transcripts of the testimony of the grand jury were being sent to washington.

now, when the case got to district court in georgia the u.s. attorney said that he did not know of any transcripts existing. he said, even if they did, things of that age did not survive. and the judge agreed, because there was nothing before the court that would indicate that the grand jury transcripts existed. you see, the wording of the lead investigator was, i understand transcripts had been sent. in other words, he was not sure. i know that they could not have survived in atlanta, because i found a letter that said, in 1991, it said everything to do with the massacre had been destroyed in atlanta. i did not buy that. and i do not by the fact that they say the transcripts do not exist in washington or

elsewhere, so that is where we stand today -- waiting for the justice department to reply and find out if the transcripts are anywhere in the federal government or in another place. times have changed. the memorial committee was created by people of both races and they laid plaques beside or near the graves of the four victims, each reading, may your suffering the -- be redeemed by -- i cannot remember the wording.

may your suffering be redeemed by brotherly love. they raised funds for scholarships for the dorseys and attitudes have changed since then. nowadays, law enforcement officials linked arms with others across the bridge in honor of those who have fallen. and the local committee, they block the intersection, allowing participants in the reenactment to go forward. now, i will close with this. 53 years after the massacre, a biplane flew high over the grave of george dorsey, the veteran of world war ii, in memory and tribute to this veteran. this would have been unthinkable

in 1946. and the mourners sang -- i cannot remember the name of the song. you know, the one when using -- when you sing in memory of someone that has fallen. anyway, they gave a flag to a nephew. in other words, they paid homage to this great man. and george dorsey's sisters-in-law was a lady called, ruby. she said, she said i never ever thought it would happen. thank the lord i lived to see it.

thank you. [applause] >> we have time for a few questions. please go to the microphone in either i'll -- aisle. >> i have a question on the right. i think it is a great story and i have been aware of it for a long time, especially on the committee -- of the committee, but i have a problem with the title. you say the last lynching, what

would you say to the family of charles parker in mississippi, or of the three civil rights workers that were murdered, don't those -- at least two of them, do they not count as lynchings? and they were in the 1960's. anthony: absolutely right. it was not the last lynching, it was the last mass lynching. and i know that it rocks -- it did not rock a small town only, it rocked a nation and created international headlines. i put this to the publisher and the publisher has the right to choose the title. and they said that the word mass, mass lynching would describe how it was different from the others. it does not differ much from

those three civil rights workers that were murdered in the 1960's, but that is what happened. the publisher chose the title and i had no recourse to change it. you are right. anthony: nobody else? there must be. >> i wonder if you could put things in perspective. being a native of england, can you think of anything in england that would approach the american lynchings? and for the 1946 lynching, how unique was this? i remember at the theater saying that -- seeing the tallest tree, and the lynching. had a lynching died out after the post-world war ii?

anthony: it did not die out. it was only recently that a black man was dragged behind a car in texas. it is still going on. to find an analogy in england. i mean, i was a schoolboy in the 1950's and i remember very clearly -- i remember the killings on the bridge, it was horrific. they tortured children and they killed them. those people were imprisoned. they did not carry out the death penalty, but they honestly do not think that anything approximates what black people went through with lynching. you know, i cite in the preface the debate from 2005 amongst people in the united states and

john kerry was then a senator and he thought and said, lynching was putting a rope around somebody's neck and raising them up in a tree. but he said truthfully, it involves people going there for sport. they used to take children to look at this. they would take away, like this case, they would take away trophies -- years, fingers -- ears, fingers, things like that. so i do not think that anything in england approximate that. but death is death. and lynching is still going on. >> tony, i understand how sacrosanct the national archives regards grand jury testimony, income tax returns, and i

realize that ok's and only a judge -- occasionally a judge will open up the transcript. why do you think that if a transcript could be found in washington pursuant to your request, there would be possibility of it being opened? anthony: i think that age would have something to do with it. requiring them to be open. you cannot demand the secrecy of the grand jury to be breached for public interest. that is what we would cite. there is that question that the

grand jury testimony is secretive, because it protects everybody. but in this case, it happened so long ago that i am convinced that if we could lay our finger on the transcript it could be revealed, they would allow me to see it. but the thing is to find them. i do not think that they were destroyed. i know that j edgar hoover's private secretary, helen, destroyed a lot of his personal papers after hoover died in 1972. it is possible that the grand jury testimony was destroyed, but i do not think that would come from the fbi. i do not think so.

i think rather those files destroyed by helen must have involved sexual things to do with people in high office that could be used as blackmail, but >> thank you, anthony. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history.

♪ >> welcome to nashville, tennessee on american history tv. in the 19 century, it earned the souththe athens of the because of its reputation as a wealthy and refined southern city. today, nashville is known for its ties to country music. with the help of our comcast cable partners, we will exhibit two exhibits at the country music hall of fame and museum. one about music raging political gaps in the 1960's and another about the origins of country music in nashville. now call country music comes from the confluence of the fiddle